Jeff Bobo

ROGERSVILLE — For at least the past five school years, the Hawkins County School System has used the same formula to calculate the student transportation bill it sends the Rogersville City School System every year.

This past July, however, RCS officials were dismayed to receive a bill that was $9,000 more than the independent K-8 school had budgeted for transportation, and $12,000 more than the previous school year.

On Nov. 18, RCS officials including Superintendent Rebecca Isaacs came to a workshop meeting of the Hawkins County Board of Education’s Transportation Committee seeking a resolution to this billing dispute.

RCS currently has an outstanding bill of $90,349 for pupil transportation from the 2012-13 school year. That bill was sent to RCS in July, several weeks after RCS had completed its 2013-14 budget from which the bill would be paid.

At the Nov. 18 workshop Isaacs offered to pay $81,000, the amount that RCS had budgeted.

She noted that going back the five previous years, RCS had made payments to the county school system for student transportation of $62,000, $75,529, $50,947, $80,545, and the most previous year, $77,647.

“We had budgeted on past payments we made and we had not seen a huge increase in fuel costs or those types of things,” Isaacs told the committee. “Our budget had long since been approved when we received this invoice. It came after our fiscal year had started.”

Hawkins County Director of Schools Charlotte Britton said she believes the $90,349 bill is fair and reflects the same billing formula used since she became director.